Prejudice

America has a well-documented history of racism since it’s formation. From the Native Americans, to slavery and the Black experience of African Americans, to the world wars and Asian Americans, there is no shortage of history that one can look at. This country and the people have come a long way from the time of referring to people openly in the most derogatory terms one can use. Despite the progress that we have made, many Americans feel that racism was over with civil rights movement and that equality now exists between Whites and people of color and other minorities. The civil rights movement definitely made a huge impact on overt racial behaviors, but it did not eliminate them or racial attitudes.

Over racial attitudes has been mostly eliminated. It’s not longer acceptable to refer to African Americans, as “niggers” in most circles much like it is not acceptable to refer to Asians as “chinks”. I have to specify most circles because some of those racial attitudes still exist in some. You can find several places, such as Facebook and Twitter, where these racial overtones still exist by way of the online disinhibition effect (Suler, 2004). The online disinhibition effect categorizes six factors that characterize online behavior and how it can bring out the worst in us. This includes anonymity, invisibility, impulsivity, narcissism, lack of authority, and disassociation.

What I will be focusing on is not the overt racism that has all but dissipated, but another type of racism known as racial microaggressions. Racial microaggressions tend to be commonplace slights that are often hostile, derogatory, or racial in nature (Sue et al., 2007). Microaggressions are implicit and often difficult to identify. Many people who use them see no harm in the statements that they are making. For instance, a person may make a comment to the effect that “you don’t act like a normal black person”, “you’re pretty for a black girl”, or “you speak good English” when said to someone of Asian descent (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2009).

According to Sue et al. (2008), microaggressions take on three forms: microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidation. Microassaults have been referred to as old-fashioned racism and this type is expression is deliberate (Sue et al., 2008). An example of this is a person refusing to serve someone in a food establishment because of their race. The other two types of microaggressions, microinsults and mocroinvalidation, are not done intentionally (Sue et al., 2007). Much like the examples I gave earlier, they’re not meant to be offensive, but they are. These types of microaggressions are outside the person’s conscious awareness. Microinsults are actions that demean a person’s racial identity or heritage whereas microinvalidations tend to exclude, nullify, or negate a person’s feelings, thoughts, or experiences (Sue et al., 2008).

The affect that this type of racial prejudice has over ethnic minorities and people of color hasn’t been studied a lot until recent years. Though it is known there is a definite psychological affect on the individuals who are subjected to these microaggressions, this has not been an important area of study. There is plenty of information on the psychological processes of White individuals and their different levels of racial bias, but there is little information on ethnic minorities who are indirectly and directly affected by racism (Okazaki, 2009). Understanding this type of racism can have huge social benefits to not only those in power, but also those with less power. There is no disagreement that overt racism is damaging and harmful, and scholars debate whether subtle forms of racism have the same effect.

The main question that one of the researchers was trying to answer is “How do subtle and covert forms of racism affect psychological health of racial minorities? (Okazaki, 2009)” This is an important question because it will give way to understanding the role of stressors in the lives of different ethnic minorities and how it affects them. There are a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to the role of racism and discrimination on minorities and how they deal with racism and its affect on their health.

Okazaki (2009) notated that there have been correlational studies done on racism and discrimination against ethnic minorities and their affect on health. Many of the effects of blatant racism linked to stress cardiovascular health, such as high blood pressure and hypertension. Ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans, who have chronic perceptions of racism are believe to have prolonged high resting systolic blood pressure.

Microaggressions have the ability to make people feel inferior, incite pain or hatred, or even anger people. People who constantly have to deal with these microaggressions are often told to “get over it”. Likewise, being subjected to microaggressions also leads to stress related illnesses. Aside from stress related illnesses, dealing with microaggressions results in increased hypervigilance and hypersensitivity. Other effects on health include depression, anxiety, lower well-being, ill health, and lower self-regard.

In one of the studies, African American women related their experiences with microaggressions and dealing with their hair. Some of them related how people of other races were threatened by their “kinky” hair or the particular hairstyles they wore (Sue et al., 2008). It was also mentioned that some people felt threatened or felt their hair style was militant since it didn’t conform to the white standard of beauty. In these circumstances, the women are viewed as being more “black” than others because of their choice of hairstyle and exercising the option not to relax their hair (Sue et al., 2008).

In another study, researchers addressed the issue of Asian Americans and microaggression by way of questions such as, “were you born here”, making statements such as “all Asians look alike”, “you speak without an accent”, or “you speak such good English”. These types of statements are harmful because it makes propogates the view that Asians are only born through Asia, that there is no distinction between people who are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. and that in order to be Asian, you must speak with an accent and bad English. Although the intentions may not be bad, these comments significantly harm the individuals who they are made to (Sue et al., 2009).

Oftentimes, many prejudices thrive because of the lack of interaction with the out-group. When you have people who are never exposed to members of the other group, typically preconceived notions and stereotypes take over (Hogg & Cooper, 2007). Interaction puts members of the in-group in contact with members of the out-group in a controlled situation in scenarios such as service learning (Hogg & Cooper, 2007). There is a correlation between contact and prejudice and research has shown that interaction between two distinguishable groups reduces prejudice. I believe that having environments in which people are able to dispel different stereotypes about a scorned group would be helpful but would probably not work on a large-scale basis. It has also been noted that bigoted people typically avoids contact with members of the out-group.

Under the decategorization model, researchers have hypothesized that bias will be reduced more if identities are salient, more so than social (Hogg & Cooper, 2007). Social identity heightens in-group differentiation. Likewise, intergroup interactions build distrust of out-groups and interactions across groups can result in anxiety (Hogg & Cooper, 2007). This model attempts to transform members’ perceptions from and “us” and “them” view to a more inclusive “we” (Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust, 2011). The common-in-group identity model comes from the belief that intergroup biases stem from the universal tendency to simply complex environments. Under this model, if people are able to change the way they socially categorize others, it can result in reduced intergroup prejudice and bias.

References

• Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. (2011). The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. Dx.Doi.org.Ezp.Waldenulibrary.org, 4(1), 1–26. doi:10.1080/14792779343000004 ↩
• Hogg, M. A., & Cooper, J. (Eds.). (2007). The Sage handbook of social psychology (concise student edition.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/9781848608221 ↩1 ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
• Okazaki, S. (2009). Impact of racism on ethnic minority mental health. Perspectives on Psychological Science. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
• Sue, D. W., Bucceri, J., Lin, A. I., Nadal, K. L., & Torino, G. C. (2009). Racial microaggressions and the Asian American experience. Asian American Journal of Psychology, S(1), 88–101. doi:10.1037/1948-1985.S.1.88 ↩1 ↩2
• Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–286. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271 ↩1 ↩2
• Sue, D. W., Nadal, K. L., Capodilupo, C. M., Lin, A. I., Torino, G. C., & Rivera, D. P. (2008). Racial microaggressions against Black Americans: Implications for counseling. Journal of Counseling & Development, 86(3), 330–338. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6678.2008.tb00517.x ↩1 ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
• Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321–326. doi:10.1089/1094931041291295 ↩